even on expert/mastery??

Really? .. Really? We are gonna bring up overpowered again in this single player game?

If you choose to, you can make any character type super powerful, super weak, or somewhere in between.

It's all in what you choose to do with them. Have fun, no one cares if your getting killed all the time, or if you walk into a dungeon and sneeze and everyone dies. It is a single player game and you can do what you want.

Stealth characters get very powerful if you build them correctly.

So do mages (depending on school) and warriors (depending on loadout).

There is no "op" there is just "power" and you will eventually get a lot of it.

I think that pure rogues are probably the weakest since they have 2 of the most useless skills in the game

But if you focus on Sneak, Archery, and some One Handed then yeah it can get a little overpowered. You can pretty much go right up to people with sneak and get 30x dagger damage.

^^ this ^^

Learn how to create and develop your character and you won't be overpowered...unless that's what you want. Then you can develop your character to be overpowered.

Your game...your choice.

Isn't that nice?

That's what makes Elder Scrolls so great, you can make an unstoppable force or you can be a weakling. It's entirely up to you and how you make your character.

This isn't a strategy game, either. No one is really rewarded for being smarter, or more careful, or better at planning... it just works out. People who expect it to be a strategy game are bound to be disappointed. TES is better described as a toy than a game. You play with it... not play it. It's not challenging to play with lego, unless you choose to challenge yourself. Same goes for TES. It's up to you to find challenges.

It is fairly easy to level sneak which includes backstabs, and archery fairly quickly. This can get you one shot stealth kills faster than most offensive styles. Any build can be a death machine though.

Sneak isn't "OP". Destruction eventually gets OP once you gain access to the Master skills.

(However, Sneak is extremely useful and deadly once you have enough sneak and the assassin's blade perk)

My warrior with maxed smithing felt more overpowered.

The thing about sneak is that if you perk both sides of the tree and get the 15x backstab bonus and the Shadow Warrior perk, you can litterally walk up to any opponent in the game, tap them on the shoulder to get their attention, then tap the sneak button and execute a quick dagger attack to get the 15x.

The Shadow Warrior perk effectively makes you invisible and undetectable for about a second and a half and if you are quick enough to land a dagger attack in that time, you get a free 15x (30x if you are wearing the DB gloves and double that again if you do a dual attack.

With a little practice and a moderately smithed elved daggers you can walk through the game and take everything down very quickly.

My advice for playing a fun sneak character is that if you do not want to feel OP, then do not perk the left side of the tree. Much more fun that way IMO.

Blend a stealth/dagger char with full Illusion magic.... whoa. As if all the stealth wasn't enough, you can also be invisible and backstab-kill anything, anywhere. Now THAT'S power. But kind of boring once you no longer incur much risk, so I've found. Stealth is badass. Invisibility, is to become a god. And gods must get bored a lot. Probably why they go out and cause so much trouble.

Mine is level 51 with sneak and 1h perks and such. Yes, I can kill most things in sneak like they're nothing. But the thing is I am very squishy, wearing light armor. If I get caught out of stealth then I can get wrecked. So ive got to be careful when I have multiple enemies.

So, the 1 handed/dual wielding and sneak perks and their damage output can be overpowered. But an assassin/rogue build in general isn't necessarily overpowered.

I didn't do anything special with mine and became overpowered on the Expert setting. I never enchanted anything or power leveled my stats. I just played and by level 40 I could one shot nearly everything I came up against. That was with 1h only at around 65. I use a couple of daggers with a fire enchant that I picked up while questing. My gear is the Nightingale set. My ring and necklace I purchased from a vendor. I did not go out of my way to become overpowered but when I started one shotting draugr deathlords and bosses I realized that maybe it was a bit much. The game really had no challenge at that point.

pure rogues/thieves are not "OP" they might kick ass while they are unseen but if they actually are seen they die in a few blows. If you are actually playing a pure thief or rogue they do.

Play almost any character for 150 hours up until level XX and you'll be overpowered. That's how games work in general, isn't it?

If you take Shadow Warrior perk that gives the free 15x whenever you want (doubled if you are wearing DB gloves and doubled again if you dual wield), you can kill anything super quickly quickly (before it can land a few blows) even after you are seen.

Stealth characters are very powerful - until they are seen. Then, not so much. Now I am talking stereotypical rogues. We all know that in Skyrim you can take perks that let you sneak in Daedric.

For PC users there are some stealth mods that help. I modified one and now NPCs are much more alert after the initial attack. They are also a bit more difficult to sneak up on. I can still one shot one opponent, but now it's only one. The rest don't say "must have been my imagination" as their buddy lies bleeding out on the floor.

In my opinion any stealth character can be very powerful if used correctly, but i would recommend getting some of the light armor perks just in case you do get spotted. I made the mistake of not taking any of them on my first stealth build and learned the hard way.

If you mix calm/pacify with pickpocket and then backstabs then your really walking though everything. Mastery of the mind, pacify and backstabs make the left side of the sneak tree moot though.

if you stay purely assassin and don't do much in armor you can really quickly get your ass handed to you buy being 'discovered' and having to run like a scared preschool girl.

That's where alchemy and racials come in. Buff up and bust out the crazy two handed.

They are very powerful, yes but even the most overpowered thief/assassin requires that you pay attention to the game and think about what you're doing (unlike melee; tap, tap, tap... or magic; taaaaaaa.....) and this makes it challenging and fun.

Well, THAT is overpowered!